Meniscus Tears - Symptoms & Treatments

welcome to health connection I'm Chris well guess with Kettering health Network and now we're talking with dr. Krista meliora she's an orthopedic surgeon with Kettering physician network and practices here at Fort Hamilton hospital thank you for being here first of all we want to talk today about meniscus tears it's something that I think happens quite often in sports medicine and just in general population what exactly is a meniscus and what does it do in the knee well meniscus is a fiber cartilage ring inside your knee you have one on each side of your knee between your thigh bone and your shin bone and it kind of acts as a sort of a cushion a shock absorber for the knee and we commonly see it injured in people who are doing twisting type injuries or if they step wrong and fill pop in their knee it could easily be a meniscus tear we also see it in degenerative tears people who have arthritis for long standing history of arthritis so a lot of people deal with knee injuries and knee pain what exactly are the symptoms of a meniscus tear and how is that different from a lot of the other injuries that you have in the knee sometimes you do not see swelling of the knee when you have a Miss here and that can fool a lot of people they think that if they have a real injury inside the the internal part of their knee that they have to have a big swollen knee like you would see with an ACL but the meniscus tear you sometimes don't have swelling but will you typically present with this pain usually it's localized to either the inside or the outside of the knee and it's sometimes people describe it as a sharp stab like an ice pick being poked right in the inside of their knee especially when they do twisting activities or if they're pivoting squatting and it seems to be a lot of people's problems getting in and out of a car or even sometimes at night when they're sleeping and they roll over they can feel it on the inside of their knee as well is this something that goes away over time or do you have to take action with a meniscus there sometimes meniscus tears I consider them like a rock in your shoe sometimes it bothers you where if there is a true tear and it's kind of flipped in your joint you're feeling it you notice pain and symptoms you have clicking popping kind of catching type feeling of your knee and other times it you don't have it at all it's like when that piece is flipped out just like a rock and a shoe and so the problem with meniscus tears is that they do not heal on their own the blood supply the meniscus tends to be kind of poor and the only the peripheral edge or the purple 1/3 of a Miss 'kiss will heal the rest of the tears which is most of us have are on the inner surface and they do not heal so do people walk around with these for a long time and just deal with them yeah some people are asymptomatic with meniscus tears and they don't have any kind of issues and it doesn't seem to bother and other people have significant disability and they can't do their activities of daily life they feel like every step they take there they're feeling that catch or that lock in their knee that is from the meniscus tear if they don't have symptoms they're not dealing with pain then what's the harm and leaving it the way it is some of the harm with leaving a meniscus tear is that is that the tear could potentially get bigger if you continue to do athletic activities on it or continue to do twisting injuries you can make that tear bigger and because the meniscus acts as a shock absorber or cushion of the knee you can sometimes lead to some arthritic changes in your knee if you don't take care of a meniscus right away so what do you do when someone is diagnosed with a meniscus tear sometimes people get better on their own with with with time physical therapy icing their knees anti-inflammatories and even sometimes we put a cortisone shot in their knee and it contends to calm some people down especially if it's just a small little tear if they have a big tear where they're really symptomatic and that tears got a big flap a piece that's coming in and out of the joint and every time they take a step they feel it catch then usually the best treatment for that is an arthroscopy we would go in and trim out that torn piece to contact dr. milli ory or any of our other covering physician network doctor's visit Kettering physician network.org be watching here for more health connection podcasts also sign up for the audio version on iTunes and check Kettering health org thanks so much for being here again doc no problem you

Channel: Kettering Health

Views: 398,195

Rating: 4.8520131 out of 5

Keywords: torm meniscus, meniscus tears, degenerative tears, knee pain, pop in the knee, knee tear, symptoms of meniscus tears, krista migliore DO, dr krista miglioore, migliore, treatment of meniscus tears, arthoscopy, Fort hamiltion Hospital, sports medicine, orthopedics, Tears (Biofluid), torn meniscus, health connection, dr. krista migilore podcast, Doctor (title), Doctor (Doctor Who)

Id: iIWJJUcuMfM

Length: 4min 22sec (262 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2013